Just a minute
3 min read
Hungry Ghost FestivalThe Hungry Ghost Festival is celebrated on the seventh month of the lunar calendar. During this time, the gates of hell are opened...
November 2025
This November, Penang Monthly explores language, place and memory. As GTLF returns, we highlight Penang’s multilingual streets and the dialects that keep local history alive.
Buses bring economic benefits
10 min read
It is not customary for Malaysians to see cost and benefit reports for public investments, even though fiscal spending on development projects has gone on for decades under Malaysia’s five-year plans.
What now, after Teng (Sr)?
7 min read
Chuah Siew Teng – spontaneous and abstract.Datuk Chuah Thean Teng, known as Teng (Senior) was Malaysia’s only artist acknowledged to have star...
EMC lab to encourage product designing
6 min read
From september 2010 onwards, Penang can boast an EMC laboratory of its own. This cutting edge technology determines whether or not a new electronic product design may generate or transmit unintended electromagnetic energy that interferes with other electrical equipment.
Stronger states, greater progress
4 min read
The recent spat between the Penang Chief Minister and the State Development Officer heated up an issue that most people think about but dare not discuss –...
Civil servants at an impasse
5 min read
Since taking over several state governments, one of the areas the Pakatan Rakyat has had to contend most with is the civil service. A majority of the bureaucrats...
Secrets only ghosts can know
5 min read
Review of The Blue Mansion, a film directed by Glen Goei and shot at Penang's Cheong Fatt Tze mansion.
Putting Penang’s waterfronts to work
5 min read
Penang’s history and development has always been linked to the sea. Since the British East India Company sailed into Penang’s coastal waters and established George Town on the island’s north-east tip, waterways have configured Penang’s development in fundamentals ways.
A Man Who Always Made An Impression
7 min read
Teik Chee touched many lives, and even those who got to know him for only a brief spell came away impressed. When news spread of his death, I received SMSes, phone calls and e-mails from my friends who had been acquainted with him, asking what had driven him to it.
New dynamics demand new directions
4 min read
When i took over as executive director for the Socio-Economic and Environmental Research Institute (SERI) 10 months ago, my goal was to bring the Penang think t...
On vibrant port cities and anomalous nation states
6 min read
Ho Eng Seng returned to Penang in 1986 from Stanford University with degrees in Anthropology and Economics. The timing was bad, however. The country was in th...
Turning disability into a national asset
8 min read
Malaysia is signatory to numerous conventions on equal opportunities and equal treatment for disabled persons. However, Malaysian society has yet to give adequate thought to the productivity factor of disabled persons and whether they can be gainfully employed.
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